


Appearances

by hmweasley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Dates, Kid Fic, Multi, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-06 03:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley
Summary: Tonks won't let her worries stand in the way of going on their first date. Fleur reflects on how Tonks and Bill are steadying forces in her life. And lots of parenting happens.A collection of drabbles about Fleur/Tonks/Bill.





	1. The First Date

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Moresome May challenge on another forum.

Tonks didn’t consider herself a nervous person. She had always been sure of herself, and she didn’t make decisions she wasn’t confident in.

When she’d been sixteen, she’d declared to her friends that the idea of monogamy didn’t make sense to her, and she had been confident that it wasn’t for her. They’d mostly scoffed, but Tonks hadn’t backed down as the years passed.

She was still confident in what she’d said then, she reminded herself. What she was currently finding herself unconfident about was the date she was meant to be at in less than fifteen minutes.

Over the years, she had never happened to date anyone who was married, let alone two people who were married to each other. She hadn’t expected it to scare her, considering her views on relationships.

Tonks knew she was a fun person. And nice too. Not perfect. She wasn’t conceited, but she had a healthy view of her own self-worth.

Still, Bill and Fleur had been married for two years and together longer. It wasn’t dropping into fifty year marriage or something, but they had a history together that Tonks wasn’t a part of. There was no denying that, and there was no way Tonks could enter a relationship with them and expect it to be on the same level. Not right away.

It was enough to have her wondering why she’d agreed to the date in the first place.

That was a ridiculous streak of doubt. She’d agreed to the date because Bill and Fleur were both incredible people. She’d been fond of them since she had met them. At Hogwarts, Bill had been popular and someone Tonks enjoyed spending time with, though it had never happened to cross into dating territory. She wouldn’t have expected it to; two years was a larger gap when you were a student.

Fleur she’d met much later, during a war and after her engagement was official. Tonks hadn’t let herself become interested because she’d had no reason to believe that marriage didn’t mean monogamy for Bill and Fleur like it did most others.

It had only been after the war, when the two of them had gone out of their way to comfort her in the wake of Remus’ death, that it had become clear they weren’t sticklers for the “traditional” family route.

That had been a nice surprise, and when she’d found herself ready to date again, they’d been just as eager to give it a shot as she was. Andromeda had even been thrilled when Tonks had explained why she needed her to take Teddy for the night.

They would make quite the picture in the fancy restaurant Bill had made a reservation at. All three of them there together, including a visibly pregnant Fleur.

When she’d agreed to the date, it had felt thrilling, not scary. It was only after she’d let herself consider the depth of Bill and Fleur’s relationship compared to her relationship with either one that her anxiousness had crossed the line from excitement to fear.

Glancing down at her watch, she saw that she should have left several minutes earlier. Her stomach dropped out of her abdomen.

She took a deep, steadying breath. 

Nothing could be harder than becoming an Auror, and she’d managed to pull that off. She could get through one measly date. Fear certainly wasn’t going to stop her.

XXX

Thankfully, Bill and Fleur were already there when she arrived, so she didn’t have a chance to flee at the last second. She wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t have otherwise.

They were both smiling, and it was enough to calm her. She didn’t feel like she needed to escape anymore, though she did still feel a little light-headed. She didn’t think that was going to change for the duration of the date.

It wasn’t too much as she navigated her way through the restaurant, barely sparing a thought for the rumours that may have already been spreading about them. She’d never been ashamed before; she wasn’t going to let society get to her when things finally seemed to be going right after they’d felt wrong for so long.

She could do this, she thought as she approached them.

They were sitting at a table, and it didn’t go unnoticed that they’d placed all three of the chairs equally distant from each other. Knowing Bill and Fleur weren’t an impenetrable cluster meant more than she’d say out loud at this stage of the relationship.

By the end of the night, none of them had stopped smiling, and Tonks didn’t feel a shred of fear when they set their next date.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (word) unsteady

Fleur had always felt that everything in her life was unsteady. No matter how perfect things might have appeared from the outside, she’d been unable to escape the belief that it was all seconds from crumbling away.

She could trace the exact moment that had led to that belief:

As a young girl at Beauxbatons she’d been betrayed by the people she had thought were her best friends, all because they’d believed that someone like her couldn’t be trusted. They’d said terrible things and insisted they were true.

Fleur’s mother had said they were only jealous of her beauty, that their own insecurities had led them to prey on her to make themselves feel better, but Fleur hadn’t come to see the truth in her mother’s words until she was an adult. For most of her young life, she had believed her mother was simply being nice and trying to placate her.

The experience had left her with the unhealthy belief that anyone she let in was more likely to betray her than not. Even if her former friends’ motivation had been jealousy, who was to say someone else wouldn’t get just as jealous and turn on her too?

So, Fleur tried to be kind to everyone, but she was careful about letting anyone too close. Boys, while they didn’t tend to get jealous, could be cruel in their own ways after all, and Fleur had become used to keeping her distance from them as well.

Bill Weasley had been the first man she had been able to trust.

It had taken time, but she’d eventually been able to believe with her full heart that he wasn’t only dating her because of her looks. The thrill of it left her with a new enjoyment for life, and though some would have argued it was too quick or that she was too young, she would never regret marrying him.

It had been during their engagement that she had first met Tonks.

Whereas Fleur had done her best to act demure to try to counteract the pernicious belief that she must desire attention if she looked the way she did, Tonks was loud and had commanded Fleur’s attention from the moment they’d first met.

The woman oozed confidence that Fleur couldn’t have hoped to achieve, and the fact she was a metamorphmagus made her even more fascinating.

Fleur would have given anything for the ability to make herself less conventionally attractive, and at first, her curiosity had primarily been jealousy, though she hadn’t let the emotion sour her blossoming friendship with the woman like it had done to her previous relationships.

It had quickly became clear to her that she had nothing to fear when it came to Tonks envying her looks. Tonks, after all, could look however she wanted, yet she had never tried to fashion herself into what the world wanted from her. 

Fleur’s fascination with the other woman had proven to be a distraction when she was meant to be planning a wedding, and when Bill had first asked her about it, she had felt guilty, like she had something to hide. She had been surprised when Bill had smiled gently at her and admitted that he couldn’t blame her because he, too, found Tonks rather mesmerizing.

It hadn’t been a secret between them after that, and it soon became clear that both of them felt more for the woman than friendship.

Five years later, Fleur couldn’t believe there had ever been a time when she had believed Bill might resent her feelings for Tonks. She smiled at them from the couch as they sat in a circle on the floor with Teddy and Victoire.

The children were getting bigger, and their parents had determined it was time for them to learn the rules of Exploding Snap. Well, two of their parents had decided it. Fleur wasn’t as convinced that giving the children any game that exploded was a good idea. She found the whole idea of Exploding Snap rather off putting, but, of course, the Curse Breaker and Auror didn’t have the same reservations.

Teddy and Victoire were already taking after the thrill-seeking part of the family. The Fleur of the past might have been worried that she’d feel isolated and different, but her family always made it abundantly clear that such a thing would never happen. 

Even now, as she sat on the couch, outside of their little group, she felt entirely as if she belonged. Tonks was sitting at her feet, leaning in to her between turns, and Bill sat across from her, making eye contact frequently as they smirked at a shared joke. 

Teddy and Victoire were too concentrated on the game to pay much attention to anything that wasn’t the cards, but it was her they ran to each time a card exploded in their face, soaking in her calm reassurances while Tonks and Bill tried to quell their laughter.

No, she didn’t feel unsteady anymore. It was hard to believe she ever had.


	3. Birthday Presents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill, Fleur, and Tonks go shopping for Victoire's birthday presents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: action - going shopping, item - doll

“Remember Teddy’s allergic to bees. His potion is in the bag, but please keep an eye on him, Mum. He gets shaken after a reaction. Last time we couldn’t get him back outside for more than a week.”

“Bill,” Molly said calmly, placing a hand on his arm. “I’m their grandmother. Believe it or not, you’ve left them with me before.”

He took a deep breath, rubbing at his brow.

“I know,” he admitted. “I do. It’s just that Victoire had that nasty fall the other day, and it’s got me shaken up. Give me some time to get over it.”

Molly smiled again, patting his arm several times before letting go.

“The first bad injury is always the worst. By the time you get to the tenth, everything’s fine as long as you don’t need to rush to St Mongo’s.”

The idea of checking either of the children in to the hospital made his heart rate skyrocket.

“That’s not helping, Mum.”

“No,” Molly had begun to busy herself with washing the breakfast dishes, “perhaps not, but it is a nice reminder that I have my fair share of experience with children.”

“And we trust you completely, Molly,” Fleur assured her as she and Tonks entered the kitchen from the living room, where they’d just settled the kids in.

“Bill blames himself for Victoire falling off the broom,” Tonks added. “That’s what’s got him worked up.”

Molly hummed in agreement. She’d already worked that out for herself.

“They’ll be unharmed when you get back. Have fun in Diagon Alley.”

It was as sharp a dismissal as Molly would ever give any of her children, and with a bit of reluctance still, Bill reached for the flower pot of floo powder.

XXX

Diagon Alley was not Bill’s favourite place on weekends. He couldn’t stand wading through the crowds to look at the products for sale. What could have been a simple shopping trip always took three times longer than necessary. He would have preferred to come on a weekday, when there were less people and Diagon Alley was enjoyable, but between the three of them, there was no weekday they could get off at the same time.

The toy store was particularly packed for some reason. Bill sighed as he waited for a father and his three children to move out of the way so he could look at the toys they were monopolizing.

He’d lost Fleur and Tonks in the store as they’d wandered off in different directions, each determined to get Victoire the best birthday present they could find.

It wasn’t a competition, as all three of their names would go on each present, but it kind of was.

When they’d arrived, Bill had figured he had this in the bag. He knew his daughter, played with her every day. It couldn’t be hard to pick out a toy for her. He’d done it before, of course, but her interests changed so rapidly that he couldn’t buy the same gifts he had in the past.

The store had a wider variety of toys than Bill had known one could buy before becoming a parent. There were even dolls you could burp, complete with fake spit-up. He certainly wasn’t buying one of those. The large toy dragons that blew out fake fire were labelled safe for all ages, but Bill thought that might be something to get her when she was older. (Though he wouldn’t have been surprised to find one in the mail from Charlie when Victoire opened her presents.)

By the time he’d done a sweep of the store, he’d narrowed it down a bit, but he was still feeling indecisive. When her interests changed frequently, how did you choose something that would get a lot of use?

He wandered back to the doll aisle, sidestepping the burping one but picking up the one in customizable Hogwarts robes for inspection. It was simple as far as many of the store’s offerings went, but that might have been a good thing. Victoire had been talking about how excited she was for Hogwarts even though it was years away for her. She might have liked getting to choose the doll’s house.

“You can’t be serious.”

He nearly dropped the doll when Tonks’ booming voice sounded from behind him. He turned around to see both his partners watching him. Tonks with her eyebrows raised and arms crossed, Fleur with a contemplative frown.

“You’re buying her a doll?” Tonks continued when Bill didn’t own up to his apparent transgression.

“Maybe.”

Bill defensively clutched the doll to his chest.

“It has Hogwarts robes,” he said lamely. “She likes Hogwarts, and she doesn’t have any dolls. It’d be something new.”

“Sweetie,” Fleur began in the same voice she used to comfort the kids when they were crying. “Victoire doesn’t have any dolls because she doesn’t want any. She’s not interested.”

He glanced around to make sure there were no other shoppers watching his embarrassment.

“I know, but maybe she would realize they’re fun if she had one to play with.”

“She’s been around other kids with dolls,” Tonks said. “She doesn’t want to play with them.”

He gave up trying to defend his choice, sitting it back down on the shelf.

“What are you getting her then?”

Tonks beamed, holding up a bright orange board game.

“You play as an Auror candidate, and you have to successfully complete training. Look here.” She turned the box around so they could read the list of tasks. “They really do have every part here. Victoire and Teddy can see what I had to do to get where I am. I’ll totally be the cool parent after I give her this.”

Bill wondered if there was an equivalent for curse breakers. It wasn’t a bad idea.

Fleur held up a purple toy cauldron that came with a potions kit with harmless ingredients.

“She can practice making potions change colours or bubble. Things like that,” Fleur explained. “She’ll love getting to make a mess.”

His shoulders had drooped in defeat, and both women were quick to step forward to comfort him.

“The doll wasn’t that bad of an idea,” Fleur said. “One day maybe she’ll want one.”

“And you’re right that she’s been going on about Hogwarts lately,” Tonks said, smiling. “Just this morning she wouldn’t shut up about going to find the kitchens on her first day.”

The reminder of why Bill had chosen the doll in the first place was enough to spark an idea in Bill’s mind. 

“Hogwarts,” he repeated. “That’s it!”

Without an explanation, he began wading through the crowd to another area of the store that held costumes. Sure enough, the miniature Hogwarts robes were where he remembered them being.

He tugged a set off the rack, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

“Now those,” Tonks fingered the material, “she won’t take off for days.”

Bill nodded in satisfaction before he noticed the Ravenclaw crest on the pair he was holding.

“Wait. Which house do we get her?”

He made intense eye contact with Tonks. For a second, it was silent.

“Four sets would be nice,” Fleur said, stepping between them to pull the other three houses off the rack. “That way we can wash them.”

She shoved the other three into Bill’s arms and began ushering them towards the cashier.


	4. Go Back Ten Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoire opens her new board game, and Tonks tries to show the kids why they should want to be Aurors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: action - playing games
> 
> The really didn't mean for so many of these to center around the kids, but I've found that I really like writing their dynamics as parents.

On the day of Victoire’s birthday, Tonks found herself as excited for Victoire to open her presents as the young girl herself was. If Bill’s behavior was anything to go by, he felt the same way. Their sense of competition over their presents had not died down in the days since they’d bought them.

Fleur rolled her eyes over the children’s heads as Tonks and Bill rushed them through breakfast to get to the fun part of the morning.

For once, they’d all managed to get the day off work despite it being a Thursday, and Victoire was thrilled with the attention everyone was giving her. Her eyes grew wide as they laid their three gifts in front of her on the kitchen table.

“These are from us,” Fleur explained. “You’ll get your other gifts at the party this afternoon.”

Victoire’s eyes grew wider at the thought of more presents. Tonks wondered if she was old enough to even remember what her previous birthday had been like.

The wrapping paper was gone in record time, strewn on the floor and then gone with a flick of Tonks’ wand. Victoire made gasping noises as she inspected the items: the Hogwarts costumes, the toy cauldron, and the board game.

Tonks couldn’t disguise her bias towards the game.

“It’s Auror training,” she explained, leaning forward as Victoire inspected the box. “Remember how Mum’s an Auror? This is what I do every day at work.”

Victoire’s mouth was a perfect ‘O’. Though her reading wasn’t yet good enough to make sense of what the box said, her eyes roved over it as if she could comprehend every word.

“Want to play?” Tonks asked, half rising out of her seat in anticipation.

She saw Fleur stifle a giggle out of the corner of her eye, but she chose to ignore it.

Victoire nodded eagerly, moving to take the lid off the box.

“Wait,” Bill cut in, reaching across the table. “Don’t you want to put on your new robes first?”

XXX

“See this here?”

Tonks pointed at the card she’d drawn, encouraging the kids to lean in and inspect the colourful picture that adorned it.

“Cloaking and disguise,” Tonks said. “It’s one of the trickiest parts of becoming an Auror, but I sailed through with flying colours thanks to this.”

She morphed through several appearances in quick succession, earning giggles from both children. Teddy mimicked her, doing his best to match the faces Tonks had shown them. When he was finished, his hair was a mixture of green, black, and pink, but he didn’t seem bothered by the look.

“You know,” Bill cut in, “there’s a similar part to Curse Breaker training.”

Tonks glared at him as the kids gave him just as much attention as they’d been giving her moments before.

“You have to know how to disguise yourself from the nasty traps that might have been set, you see?” Bill said. “And you have to be able to identify any cloaking spells others have set.”

“Same in the Auror Department,” Tonks said. “You never know when you could be walking into a trap.”

“Yes, well, it’s not quite as likely for an Auror as it is a Curse Breaker. Obviously you want to be careful, but most days, we’re guaranteed to encounter a cloaking spell or two.”

“You might be surprised how many cloaking spells an Auror comes up against.”

The kids’ eyes flickered back and forth between their parents as Tonks and Bill leaned closer and closer together. Fleur sighed and reached out to take the set of die from the middle of the board.

“Five,” she announced loudly, pulling everyone’s attention back to the game.

She moved her bright yellow piece across the spaces, landing on a space that read, “You failed a progress check. Go back ten spaces.”

Tonks sniggered loudly.

“As if that never happened to you in your training,” Fleur muttered just loud enough for Tonks to hear.

She fell silent for the first time since the game had begun.

XXX

“What do you think?” Tonks asked the kids as they gathered the pieces of the game and stored them back in the box. “Does being an Auror sound fun?”

Teddy frowned thoughtfully as he considered the question. When he shrugged, Tonks felt her spirits sink along with his shoulders.

“I guess,” he said with the weight of one making a real decision. “But I have to work with Uncle George and Uncle Ron when I’m big.”

“What?” Tonks and Bill asked in unison.

“Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes!” Victoire proclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “We’re training.”

“Since when?”

Teddy looked at Bill as if he truly pitied him for needing to ask that question.

“Since Uncle George said so.”

Teddy threw the pieces he was holding into the box before running off without another word. Victoire followed suit, some of her pieces missing the box entirely.

“Teddy,” she called. “Teddy, wait for me!”

Fleur finished cleaning up the game as both her partners sat quietly steaming.

She came up behind them once she had finished, setting gentle hands on both of their backs.

“They’re too young to choose careers,” she pointed out.

Both of them leaned into her touch, letting her trail her fingers over their backs. She felt Tonks shiver at the touch, and she knew she’d succeeded in at least making some difference.

“‘S fine,” Tonks said, turning towards her with a smile.

Fleur leaned in to give her a kiss, hoping it wouldn’t take too long for the statement to be true.


	5. Admiration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (word) admire

There were times when Fleur needed to take a step back to admire the people she had in her life. That wasn’t always Bill and Tonks. Sometimes she needed to time to be thankful for her children, her other family, or her friends too, but often, it was Tonks and Bill.

It was so easy to become distracted by their beauty.

Years after the fact, Fleur still couldn’t believe Molly had once accused her of not wanting to marry Bill after he’d been attacked by Fenrir Greyback. That the scars that marked his face might have somehow mitigated his beauty was ridiculous.

Tonks had told her before that, when she’d been at school, other girls had mocked her saying she couldn’t be beautiful when she could easily change her features, that her powers meant any beauty she had was false, and Fleur had wanted nothing more than to give those girls a piece of her mind.

No matter how Tonks changed her appearance, there was something about her that was so innately Tonks that Fleur could have picked her out of any line up, and it was those qualities that were the most beautiful parts of her.

Many who looked at the three of them were shallow and picked Fleur out as the most beautiful without sparing Tonks or Bill a second glance, and Fleur felt sorry for them. It seemed like a sad life to lead.

She had paused in the process of taking off her earrings when Bill had first stepped behind Tonks and helped her tug off the shirt she had gotten tangled up in. They’d giggled through it, and once it was off, Tonks had pecked Bill on the lips.

It had quickly morphed into more, and Fleur watched with warmth filling her stomach.

Sometimes, she wanted to jump in right away. Other times, she was content to spend a minute or two watching from a distance.

The way they moved together was beautiful. She couldn’t see it in the same way when she was actively involved, and that was a true shame. In moments like these, she never wanted to look at anything else.


End file.
